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Erratic idle fixed! - For TCS 9000s only

2K views 3 replies 2 participants last post by  BillJ 
#1 ·
Ever since I've owned my car I've put up with an intensely irritating idle, which misses every 10-15 seconds. I had presumed that it was a symptom of something serious rather than something silly. For a change, I was proved wrong.

The most common cause of an uneven idle with non TCS cars is a dirty AIC valve and/or dirty throttle body. However, on TCS equipped cars there is no AIC and the throttle plate can't easily be moved for cleaning purposes.

Finally, today I took a good look at my car to figure out what I could do. I took off the rubber inlet pipe, which is attached to the throttle body. Then I removed the pipe which is attached to the top of throttle mechanism from it's point of origin (which is near the false bulkhead). I sucked hard on this pipe and watched as the throttle plate turned 90 degrees. I bunged the end of the pipe, to maintain a vacuum and set about cleaning the throttle plate and throttle body using carb cleaner and a tooth brush.

Once I had reconnected the pipes, I started the car and was amazed to find that the car settled down to a stumble-free idle.

I had little faith that it would work because I presumed that a dealer-serviced car like mine would have had its throttle plate cleaned regularly. In fact, it looked to me as if the plate had never been cleaned.

Alanb
 
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#2 ·
Alanb said:
I presumed that a dealer-serviced car like mine would have had its throttle plate cleaned regularly.
I'd have made the same assumption. Either the throttle body gets dirty very quickly or Saab technicians get bored very quickly...

Hopefully you have saved yourself from the dreaded "limp-home" mode, which I think would only have been a matter of time if the throttle body was dirty enough to affect idle.
 
#3 ·
Thankfully, no limp home mode before I cleaned the throttle body.

I suppose that I should have expected the throtle body to have been untouched given that when I removed the spark plugs on my 'dealer serviced' car, their gaps were over 1.4mm (hence the dead DI cassette).

Alanb
 
#4 ·
Alanb said:
when I removed the spark plugs on my 'dealer serviced' car, their gaps were over 1.4mm (hence the dead DI cassette).
The plugs in my dealer-serviced CSE were like that (well, just under 1.4mm) when I got it. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
 
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